Groisman said he did not consider the Donbass territories, not controlled by Ukraine, "as lost finally" for Kiev

Speaker of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) Vladimir Groisman

KIEV, 7 March. /TASS/. Local elections at the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which are not controlled by Kiev, should be organised in compliance with the Ukrainian legislation and should be monitored by the OSCE mission and other international organisations, speaker of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) Vladimir Groisman said in an interview published on Saturday in the Zerkalo Nedeli. Ukraina newspaper.

Groisman said he did not consider the Donbass territories, not controlled by Ukraine, "as lost finally" for Kiev.

"Right, due to the weakness of the post-revolutionary state many mistakes were made," he said. "However, every month we become stronger."

The speaker said Ukraine supports "the president’s peace plan and the signed agreements," as "there is no other way out today."

On February 11, the Normandy Quartet negotiations - presidents of Russia, Ukraine and France and German chancellor - in Minsk in various formats (in private and with other delegations) lasted for the total of 16 hours from 7:15p.m. local time.

On February 12, members of the Trilateral Contact Group on the Ukrainian conflict settlement signed a four-page set of measures to implement the earlier Minsk agreements.

The document was signed by OSCE Special Representative Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine’s second President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, as well as leaders of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky. The first point of the document sets condition for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire beginning from 00:00 hours (Kiev time) on February 15, 2015. The conflicting parties agreed on withdrawal of all heavy weapons. Parties will pullback all heavy weapons to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometres wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the Tochka-U tactical rocket systems.